Think just because you’re getting a new medical device that it must be “new and improved”? According to an article by Barry Meier in The New York Times, it doesn’t play out that way for medical devices designed to be hip replacements. “New” isn’t always “improved.” The new metal-on-metal hip implants were considered by device [...]
Senators Demand Documents From Medical Device Maker, Medtronic
July 5, 2011 By 1 Comment
The medical device company, Medtronic, now faces even more scrutiny, reports Duff Wilson in The New York Times. Two senators have expanded an investigation of the medical device maker, demanding that the company hand over records that describe millions of dollars in payments to researchers and internal correspondence with doctors who published on a controversial [...]
Plastic Packaging Reconsidered
June 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Prying items out of the dreaded plastic clamshell packing involves determination and sacrifice in the form of a nail or two and a top layer of skin from your knuckles. But it looks like high petroleum prices, while hurting our wallets, may have doing our hands a favor. As Stephanie Clifford reports in The New [...]
Polymer Printing to Take Flight?
June 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Shove some polymer into a cartridge, hit “print,” and, voila, you have a part of an airplane in your hands. That is the vision GE and EADS, a European defense and aerospace company, that are pursuing to make parts that work better and cost less to produce. Printing 3D objects has been around for a [...]
The Marine Plastic Problem
June 2, 2011 By 1 Comment
Millions of tons of plastic trash is floating in the oceans. If it’s plastic, it’s probably swimming with the fish — false teeth, bags, bottles, spoons, flip flops… the list goes on. The sheer size of this body of indestructible material is causing environmentalists, government officials, and the plastics industry itself to become concerned. As [...]
Ford’s Venture Into Plastics From Weeds
May 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It looks like researchers are searching far and wide for petroleum substitutes for manufacturing plastics. There were the chicken-feather example and the fruit one. Now the automaker Ford says it will use dandelions, the bane of many a pristine lawn, to get plastic additives. According to Sebastian Blanco who writes for The New York Times [...]
Be Careful What You Wish For in Plastic Substitutes
May 9, 2011 By 1 Comment
Been buying plastic products that tout themselves to be “BPA Free”? Well, you should be wondering what chemical has been substituted for BPA (its full name is Bisphenol A) in the plastic. As reported by Erica Geis in The New York Times, Bisphenol S is used in place of BPA. The chemical is similar to [...]
GAO Concerned About Medical Device Approval Process
April 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has raised concerns about the approval process that high-risk medical devices undergo — or rather, don’t undergo — by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The federal watchdog group says the agency recently took steps to see if certain high-risk medical devices, such as artificial hips and external defibrillators, [...]
Regulators Have Bone to Pick with Medtronic Devices
April 19, 2011 By 2 Comments
Bone growth products by medical device giant Medtronic are in the regulators’ headlights. Medical devices like Amplify and Infuse that stimulate bone growth are now front and center on the radar screens of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Justice Department. Medtronic also makes other medical devices such as pacemakers and defribrillators. [...]
